About me 自己紹介

The baby gift set for my youngest niece is finally finished and it flew to Tokyo earlier this week! The gift was made for the precious little girl, Rae. I made three handmade items for her: patchwork drawstring bag, soft baby ring toy, and the personalized patchwork bib.

Does this soft toy look like bunny to you? I hope so! It's a soft ring toy with a hand embroidered face.

この布製ニギニギ、ウサギに見えますか？そうだといいのだけれど・・・。ウサギの顔はリネン地に刺しゅうを施して作りました。

Back side 裏側はこんな感じ。

Two separate body parts are stitched together to make a bunny toy...

このニギニギ、先に顔とボディを別々に作ってから縫いとめます。

I love making personalized baby gift for the baby and this one is no exception. While I stitched little Rae's name on to the bib, I wished that her life will be filled with lots of love, good health, and prosperity...

First of all, thank you very much for congratulating me about my upcoming first book! I sincerely appreciate your warm comments you left for me on this blog, on my flickr, and via emails.

Right now, I am super excited about my book release, yet it took me a while to reach this state of mind, because this entire book deal sounded just too good to be true. I just couldn't believe that there was someone out there (my Publisher) who actually wanted to take time and effort to publish MY book, out of all the talented crafters out there! Boy, is my Publisher fearless or what! (I still think that they are bunch of really brave people!)まずは私の著作本についてのお祝いコメントをありがとうございます！心よりお礼申し上げます。念願だった自分の著作本が出版されることになり、嬉しさもひとしおです。とはいえ、当初は自分の本が出版されるという事実がまったく信じられませんでした。他にも才能のある方々がたくさんいらっしゃる中、なぜこの私に出版の話をもちかけてくれたのか？と理解に苦しんだくらいです。（今でも、お世話になった出版社の方々の勇気ある決断には脱帽です！）

In fact, my hubby is still in disbelief about my entire book deal, after watching his wife working very late nights and long hours on her book for over a couple of months. He probably thinks that I was just frantically crafting, as I've always been! (lol).

I can't thank enough to my veteran editor, Linda Neubauer of Creative Publishing international, who walked me through the entire book making process with lots of patience and straightforward advice. Thank you, Linda!!

After my mind was set to write a book, I had put in 200% effort in the book making process. My goal was to include simple yet eye-catching, practical handmade zakka items with easy to follow instructions. As a Japanese craft lover, my wish has always been to share the joy of creating and using the handmade zakka that originated in Japan, with the fellow craft lovers from around the globe!

The book contains 24 zakka projects, including everyday accessories and necessities, various bags and pouches, baby and young children's items, and kitchen and lunch related projects. All projects comes with step-by-step instructions with plenty of step out illustrations drawn by me.

I'd like to thank my family members and friends for the continued support and love, the Publisher for this wonderful opportunity, and to you my fellow crafty bloggers for visiting my blog and being there for me! I look forward to share with you more about this book in the coming months. Happy zakka sewing!

This is my sewing buddy, Juki TL-2010Q. I've been using it for over a year now. This machine can only sew straight stitches (no zig zag or other fancy stitches), but it's very powerful, reliable, yet quiet, and I can't be happier with this machine!

Also... as you may have noticed, I've updated my profile picture (eeek!) and added "About me" page to my blog. It's a simple addition to my blog and hope you go take a look if you haven't yet. BTW my self portrait pic was taken in our living room using our camera's self timer function, with a little help from my thirteen year old daughter...

A little while ago, I sewed this matching reversible eco bag and a mini drawstring pouch set for a gift to our family friend. I used my favorite Echino fabrics to make these bags. As you know, Echino is a popular Japanese imported fabric line by designer Etsuko Furuya.

The matching mini drawstring pouch is made from the cut-out remnants of the inner straps when making the eco bag. I like how this small drawstring pouch shapes into a "dew drop" when the drawstrings are pulled.

お揃いのミニ巾着は、エコバッグを作る際に出る持ち手部分のハギレを使っています。巾着紐を絞ると、こんなふうにしずくの形になります。

There are no batting or interfacing used to make this eco bag, so it folds nicely when not in use.

キルト芯や接着芯を使っていないので、使わないときは小さくたためます。

... and stored inside the matching drawstring bag. I love the bird fabric!

Speaking of birds... recently, we've been spotting these wild peacocks visiting our neighborhood. You may recall that few years back, the peahens (female peacocks) even laid eggs in our backyard! (These birds fly into our neighborhood every spring from the neighboring city).

First I thought about sewing the new camera case, but I ended up crocheting one. I wanted a new case a.s.a.p. (before dropping the camera again for the third time...), and crocheting seemed like a quicker way to do this.

デジカメケース、当初はミシンで作る予定でしたが、ミシンよりも手編みのほうが早くできるかな？と思い直し、急きょ編み始めました。

Here's the sewn version of the camera case that I made few years back for our old digital camera. Yes, I still like this camera case, but this one is too roomy for our new camera to fit inside. (You know that the size of the digital camera continues to get slimmer and smaller.) Therefore I had to custom make a new case for our new camera.

It took me about two hours to crochet this simple case. Mission accomplished :)

かぎ針編みで作ったおかげか、編み始めから２時間ほどで完成しました。

There is no pattern for this project. I simply picked up acrylic/cotton blend yarn from my yarn stash and began crocheting with single crochet from the bottom up, beginning with an oval shape then making it into a flat tube shape to fit our camera snugly.

My initial plan was to embellish the camera case with these crocheted flowers... but then I changed my mind because I knew that my hubby (who is in his late forties) will not like the idea of carrying around a camera with crocheted flowers attached to the case!

Well, he may not like the bow embellishment either, but to me, the bow seemed less girly than the flowers. Or are they both equally girly looking? (lol)

Later on, I may end up making a more "unisex" looking camera case for my hubby, but as of now, we'll keep this one and see what he says ;) At least I know for sure that our girls wouldn't mind using our new camera case.

Here's something that I whipped up for my youngest sis, using the remnant fabrics from the baby gift set that I made earlier. It's a patchwork zipper pouch featuring her favorite fabrics of elephants :)

My younger sis is a school teacher in Tokyo, and she asked me to make her an oversized pencil pouch to store all her supplies she uses at school.

妹は東京で教師をしています。以前、学校で使う文具をひとまとめにする大きめのファスナーポーチを頼まれました。

I'm not sure if this zipper pouch is big enough to store all of her needy supplies, but even if it doesn't, she can still use it as a cosmetic pouch...

ただ、このサイズで充分なのかどうか？ 万一、小さすぎる場合は、化粧ポーチとして使ってもらおうと思います。

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BTW...we received these very lovely and yummy looking Easter chocolates this week. If you know me, you know that I'm a chocoholic, yet I'm trying to save these candies (at least for a few more days) for its cuteness!

The pattern is from this Japanese knitting book. This was my very first color knitted or stranded knitted project, yet I truly enjoyed the challenge. The best part was to see the patterns on the book actually show up and come to life as my knitting progressed!

Here's the back side of the gloves. As you can see, the yarns are carried across the back side of the gloves. Maintaining the right tension was quite a challenge for me.

裏側はこんな感じです。編み地がつれないように気をつけながら編むのが難しかったです。

The thumb sticks out from the opposite side of the glove like this. I think these gloves are very convenient for people who use smart phones in cold weather.

こんなふうに親指が出ます。寒い季節に、手袋をしたままスマートフォンなど指先が使えるのは便利だと思います。

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Speaking of weather, we are experiencing a summer like weather here in Southern California. In fact, today's highest was 84F (29C)... which means that I will not have a chance to wear these gloves this season (or any season at all around here). I can never complain about the gorgeous weather around here, yet when it comes to knitting winter projects, I miss the cold winter days of Japan where wearing mittens, scarves, and sweaters was a must for everyone!